


the walls between us

by Arlene0401



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Painful Sex, Prison Sex, contains spoilers up to chapter 107
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 01:29:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15304428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlene0401/pseuds/Arlene0401
Summary: After Hanji has unsuccessfully tried to talk to Eren, Levi decides to help - although he hardly recognises his former lover in the stranger downstairs.





	the walls between us

**Author's Note:**

> I had to get some feelings about the chapters 105 to 107 out of my system, and [ereri-writing prompts](http://ereri-writing-prompts.tumblr.com) offered the perfect opportunity.  
> Their prompt for July: "Numinous: Surpassing comprehension or understanding, mysterious.  
> You’ll never entirely be able to grasp it. Always just out of reach. It could be your favourite puzzle. Something you wouldn’t mind spending hours trying to figure out. Someone you wouldn’t mind spending hours trying to figure out."

Levi watches, wordlessly, as Hanji comes stumbling into the officers’ mess. She grabs a bottle of clear liquid and pours herself a double shot, considers, and tops it off with another double. Then she downs it and shudders.

When she sits down opposite of Levi, his eyes scan her disheveled appearance, but what’s even more disturbing is the look on her face. It’s defeat, and he can’t recall ever having seen her like this.

“Eren?”

She nods and exhales slowly. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Levi. This man down in the basement… this isn’t Eren anymore. I tried to talk to him, hear his reasoning and motivation. Learn what he’s up to. But he just…” She shakes her head. “He made it clear, as if I needed reminding, that we have absolutely no way of stopping him. I’m scared, Levi. For the first time, I’m scared of Eren Jaeger.”

She looks up, and something like hope flashes through her good eye before she can stop herself. Levi’s stomach churns. He already knows what she wants to ask, and he doesn't want to do it. Not now, and possibly not ever. But they all need to make sacrifices, and he is aware that he is the one person who probably has the best chances to approach Eren.

Levi pushes the tea cup away, the golden liquid suddenly unappetizing like spoilt milk. “I’ll talk to him,” he says, already rising from his seat and sparing Hanji the necessity to ask what they both know he fears.

“Thank you.” When he’s halfway to the door, she calls after him. “Hey Levi… remember you have to escort Zeke to his… temporary quarters first thing tomorrow morning, right? Make sure you get enough sleep.” She even has the nerve to wink. Without gracing her with an answer, he slams the door behind him.

The way down to the deepest cellars is long, and it’s even longer when you take your sweet time inspecting everything on your way and yelling at every scout in the vicinity. He knows he’s stalling, but it’s not like he can help it.

Levi can pinpoint exactly the moment things had started to go downhill for Eren and him. The moment Eren stopped trusting him. He can still see the pain and grief, the anger in his eyes as tears streamed over his filthy and blood stained face. Recall his own rage, fear and confusion. In the end, he had saved Armin, but he knew - and Eren knew - that he hadn’t done it because of the plead from his lover.

After that, he had felt Eren slipping through his fingers like sand. The boy he had once known inside and out grew cold and distant. Even though occasionally they still shared a bed their minds and hearts were separated, but worst of all he had lost his ability to read Eren. Once he had opened himself up to Levi, poured out his heart and shared his most private thoughts and memories. Now he closed himself off, his beautiful, expressive face morphing into a tired, empty mask, inscrutable like a marble statue.

There were still a number of things he did notice. The way Eren sometimes rubbed his forehead and muttered to himself. The steadily darkening circles under his eyes, his features growing sharper and thinner. Levi knew of Eren’s demons, knew that his father’s - and other - memories were eating him from inside, kindled the feverish fire in his eyes.

The day Eren confessed about Dinah Fritz and Historia opened Levi’s eyes to how distant they already were. At least there was a tiny sliver of guilt and regret in the glance he cast Levi’s way. A reminder that they had once been intimates and lovers, but now Levi realized that Eren viewed him primarily as an officer of the Survey Corps, someone he couldn’t possibly confide in. It was only cold comfort that he had kept his secret from Armin and Mikasa as well.

Through it all, what hurt Levi the most was that he just couldn’t stop caring. Even though their private relationship was over, even though they opposed on the professional level more and more, he couldn’t just cut off his feelings. The helplessness, the frustration of it set him on edge like nothing ever had before. Levi wasn’t a man who dealt with helplessness well. He needed solutions, he needed closure. It fed an inner spiral of anger and sorrow, made him irritable and unjust. Sometimes the temptation to beat some sense into Eren was overwhelming, his fists itching with the longing for the easy outlet of violence. The kick he delivered to Eren’s face when he was finally safely aboard the blimp over Marley, the venomous words he spat at him were born of relief. A relief that made him furious because he wasn’t supposed to feel that when he had managed to capture a possible traitor.

Even the longest trek doesn’t last forever, and eventually Levi arrives at the corridor leading to Eren’s cell. The guard looks at him as if he’s out of his mind when he requests to be let in.

“He’s nothing I can’t handle,” Levi tells the guard. “Just lock up behind me and return to your post."

The guard still looks like he would like to argue. He stinks of fear, Levi can feel it emanating from the man and polluting the crowded guard room.

Eren lies on his bunk, hands behind his head, ankles crossed. He’s clad only in his pants, and Levi wills himself not to be distracted by the sight of his naked torso. He’s acutely aware of Eren silently observing his entry with a smug little smile. Otherwise, Eren doesn’t move a muscle until the guard has vanished down the corridor again. Then, he swings his legs from the bunk and sits up.

“I see. Hanji didn’t get the answers she wanted, so she’s sending you out. What are you hoping to gain? Appeal to my soft, nostalgic feelings? Beat me into submission?” He gets up and walks around Levi. “Or whore yourself out to make me play along with your sick, pointless plans?”

He’s purposefully abrasive, and Levi recognizes his behaviour for what it is. Eren too doesn’t want to care, doesn’t want to feel. Wants to keep him at arm’s length.

“Nothing of that sort, Eren. I want to understand you again. You were so mad at your brother’s plans for Historia - how did you come to team up with him? How did all of this happen? What do you plan next?”

Eren doesn’t reply, and Levi presses further. “Eren, you saw what happens when we start fighting each other. So much blood was shed, Eren. So much blood.” Gently, he places his hands on Eren’s shoulders. “We used to be so strong together, don’t you remember? When we stood united? Please, Eren, don’t fight me. Let me help you. Show me. Let me _understand_.”

Hands reach up to cup his face, so very soft. Eren’s thumbs brush over his cheekbones like they have done countless times before, long ago. It feels as if it was in another lifetime. 

“Eren, we shouldn’t do this -” Yet Levi doesn’t resist when Eren’s warm lips slide against his. It’s been entirely too long, but still everything feels achingly familiar. Even with the passing of years, with Eren having grown another couple of inches and putting on more muscle, Levi could map out his body in his sleep. Eren’s mouth too, his taste, his smell, the hands on his body. 

“You are so infuriating, Levi… why do I still love you? Why do I still desire you?” Eren mutters into the crook of his neck and bites down, soothes the sting with his tongue.

“Likewise,” Levi responds and pulls on Eren’s hair to expose his neck, retaliating with sucking hard in a point just below his ear, the one that he knows makes him weak.

How many times has he chased a nebulous, Eren-shaped forms in his dreams, only to have them slipping from his grasp and dissipating into smoke and ashes. The man in his arms now is warm and real, and Levi stops fighting the old magnetic pull. They can talk later, they can argue later, and he tells himself that what is happening right now between them won’t change that. His shirt is soon discarded, followed by both their pants and underwear.

It has been a while since Levi has done this, and spit is no suitable means of lubrication. He doesn’t let it deter him, welcomes the sharp sting of pain that makes the pleasure all the more vivid and numbs his inner turmoil.

It’s sloppy and graceless, desperate and heated, and the guard can probably hear everything, but neither of them can be bothered. 

“What is happening to you, Eren?” Levi grasps his face so he can look into his eyes. “What is happening?”

Eren stops his hard thrusts, puzzled. He wipes moisture from Levi’s face, and only then he becomes aware that he’s been crying.

“Am I hurting you, Levi?” An expression breaks through his clouded, distant eyes. Concern. Affection. Fondness. It’s been years since he has looked at Levi like that.

“You’ve been hurting me ever since I first laid my eyes on you.”

Eren kisses him. Tender. Careful. “I know. And I won’t be able to stop. I’m sorry.” He starts moving again, this time more slowly, finds an easy rhythm that has them both moaning. It feels exactly like all those years ago, back when they were madly in love and had nothing more to worry about than killing titans and coming back alive, back when their world was smaller and simpler. Levi comes with his back arched and a low groan, and Eren follows soon after, whimpering his name in a broken litany.

“I meant what I said, Eren,” Levi says later as he lies curled up against his side. “Let me into your life again. Help me. Let us sort out this mess once and for all.”

Eren brushes some sweaty strands from his forehead. “Maybe.”

When Levi awakes, he is alone in the cell.


End file.
